Category Archives: Product Reviews

Gadget, gear, and technology

Gadgets, Product Reviews

Monstrum Tracer 1000LM EDC

At SHOT Show 2023 I visited the Monstrum Tactical booth where they introduced me to a green prototype of their new Tracer EDC EDC flashlight. Monstrum told that this new rechargeable flashlight and laster had a max output of 1000 lumens and included a green laser pointer. A few weeks later the Tracer was released and Monstrum sent me a sample to test and evaluate.

The Tracer is an all metal, flat rectangular box that weighs slightly less than 3oz and is 4.5″ long, 1″ wide, and a half-inch thick. The far end from the LED emitter (base) has embedded Neodymium magnets which allow the light to self-mount on metal surfaces. The unit includes a pre-installed clasping clip.

The controls are two flat rubber pads which control the flashlight and laser respectively. A small silicone rubber flap on the side of the unit protects a USB-C charging port. The Tracer is IPX6 rated and it survived a high-pressure water hose spray.

Testing the unit in my DIY Lumen Testing Rig, I recorded an approximate value of 1300 lumens at its highest output mode, higher than the 1000 lumen max number Monstrum advertises. In a battery Runtime tests, the unit lasted the 30 minutes (± 0.75 minutes) at maximum brightness; at which time the unit was uncomfortably too hot to hold.

In many ways the Tracer exceeded expectations. But where it falls short is in its lack of a brightness-output mode-memory. The Tracer always activates at max brightness (1000LM) which is potentially blinding if you turn it on while looking in a small dark space; such as under a car seat.

Furthermore, the green laser and the flashlight can not be activated at the same time; activating one turns off the other. While this is not an issue when using the Tracer as a business presentation pointer, but if you’re in a out in the woods walking a fence and want to use the laser to use the laser to identify one tree from among a forest, you’re out of luck.

One question comes to mind: is the Tracer a copy of the Arkfeld. My first impression of the Tracer was that it looked suspiciously like an OLight Arkfeld, which is also a 1000LM rechargeable light. Is this a copy of the OLight or an EOM factory custom variant? It doesn’t really matter, the Tracer feels and performs like a solid EDC light. The primary difference is that the controls of the Tracer are digital pressure pads and the USB-C charging port which I find more practical than the custom magnetic cables used by OLight.

The Monstrum Tracer EDC is available through these Affiliate links which support my channel:
Amazon https://amzn.to/49vpE7J
Monstrum.com https://alnk.to/8PBuQJC

Product Reviews, Shooting Sports

Bausch and Lomb Discoverer 15-60×60

When I was a boy, my uncle let me borrow his B+L Discoverer. I used this scope to spot my hit on paper . It’s a straight tube refracting telescope of the kind that looks like a classic telescope. In fact I used to see the rings of Saturn for the first time.

Last year, I indulged in a little nostalgia when I purchased a 1980’s vintage B+L Discoverer spotting scope on Ebay. This 15-60×60 spotting scope was made by Bausch and Lomb, a brand best known today as a maker of contact lenses but back in the 1980’s, B+L was better known as a maker of military grade optics. B+L made binoculars and target scopes for US Army tanks and planes in the WWII, and invented RayBan sunglasses for bomber pilots.

The Discoverer dwarfs most modern 60mm spotting scopes. It is over 17″ long and weighs 3lbs due to its all metal tube construction and glass. Modern spotting scopes typically utilize a prism to bend the light and make the overall length, shorter. Most modern scopes are far lighter using more plastic parts. And most importantly, modern ED glass has higher light throughput, specialized coatings to reduce chromatic aberrations.

Most modern spotters over $250 in the 60x class will offer better image quality due to advancements in computerized glass fabrication and optical coatings. But compared to budget scopes, the Discoverer can still hold its own with superior sharpness and detail. If you’re lucky, you can still find this scope on Ebay, estate sales or garage sale for under a $100 (mint condition in box models go for much more). Just be sure you give the glass and the body a good inspection.

Product Reviews, Shooting Sports

Lasting Merino Wool Clothing

A gun industry trade show isn’t the first place you’d go to try wool socks, but that’s where we found ourselves on the final day of SHOT Show. My producer came across Lasting, an outdoors clothing company which makes 100% Merino wool in the Exhibitor map. We stopped by after visiting another nearby booth to see what they had to offer.

Every experienced outdoorsman I know swears by wool as the best material for socks for its moisture wicking and wearing properties. This includes sportsmen, military, and law enforcement, that attend SHOT or cater to that market. It’s surprising therefore, there are almost no outdoor clothing companies at SHOT.

Neither my producer or I were familiar with the Lasting brand. Our goal was to check out their products, especially their socks, and if they were quality, find out from the booth where online or which local retailers carried them. And boy, was I unprepared for what we experienced.

I believe wool is great for outdoor clothing (and many of my business suits are made of it). But I can’t wear wool without wearing a cotton base layer under it. My skin is unusually sensitive and typical wool will raise hives when it brushes against my bare skin, unless its Cashmere, even 100% Merino wool.

But I found out at Lasting that not all 100% Merino wool is the same. They only use 16.5µm thickness Morino wool thread which comes from the softer belly fur of Merino sheep. This makes their clothing feel more like silk or lycra than wool.

Yeah, I’ve heard similar claims about soft wool from clothing reps during Fashion Week in New York City, but my standard for soft is a lot higher than most. I was dumbfounded at how soft Lasting’s t-shirts felt. I’m wearing their t-shirt right now and I’ve never before been able to wear wool on my bear skin before this.

I never heard of Lasting before SHOT. I’m a Lasting fan now. But dang are they pricy. If you need a soft wool base layer, they are worth it.

Product Reviews

Don’t get Goggles4U wet

Last year, I ordered prescription bifocal tinted sunglasses from the online optical company Goggles4u.com. I really liked their product selection and especially their low price. They even had an augmented reality tool on their website that allowed me to virtually wear a selection of their frames and see what they looked like using my computer camera.

I bought these sunglasses for daytime driving and they worked as until I got them dirty. I dripped some food on them when I got food in a drive through. So to give them a proper cleaning, I followed the advice I’d been given by every optometrist I’ve ever been to: wet the lenses thoroughly with water and clean them gently with lens cleaning fluid or a drop of dish detergent. After doing this, I discovered to my alarm that the coating on the tinted lenses washed off! The view through the glasses were now blurry and blemished.

I went to Goggles4u.com and used their Customer Service form page to upload photos of the glasses and ask them if something was wrong with how my glasses were constructed. The following emails were dumbfounding. Their Customer Service representatives explained to me that their sunglass coatings are NOT water proof! WTF?! Not only have I never heard of this kind of defect in custom optical eyewear but there was no warning of this issue when I ordered the glasses (nor now on the website.)

So while I had held this company in high esteem, this experience has flipped my opinion of this company and their products. I will never, ever buy or recommend their glasses.



Gadgets, Product Reviews, Social

Fulaim Cardioid Lav Mic

Lavalier or Lav mics for short are a mainstay of film and video audio. They allow you to record a subjects voice or dialogue while helping to isolate their voice from background noise. This isn’t always fully achievable in a noisy environment but its results are generally much better than the audio from the camera’s built-in microphone.

Microphones generally come in two audio pickup patterns: omni-directional and cardioid. Cardioid patterns are more sensitive to sound directly in front of the microphone and less sensitive to background sound. But cardioid lav mics generally require an outside power source (Phantom Power) to drive their electronics. And cardioid lav mics are also generally more expensive.

I was surprised and a little dubious when I found that a company named Fulaim sells a microphone that they claim has a cardioid pattern that can be plugged directly into a camera or 3.5mm jacked phone without the need for Phantom Power from a mixer. I was even more incredulous when I saw the price. At the time I purchased it, I paid $12.99 on Amazon and it has since dropped to $9.99!

The Fulaim lav mic has a very long 19.7″ cable. The Fulaim unit uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack with a control switch can be selected for either TRS (camera or stereo audio) or TRRS (phone) connections. The control panel also contains a switch to select for either Omni or Cardioid polar patterns.

For the audio testing, I went to the Stonestown Shopping Center the weeked after Christmas when I knew the mall would be full of shoppers. This presents a difficult challenge for any video audio on the best of times, with crowds of people walking, talking and plenty of reflective surfaces to create echos and amplify and the background clutter.

I connected a Rode Wireless Go II unit to my Samsung Galaxy S22 phone. One transmitter picked up raw audio through its built in omni-directional microphone. I plugged in the Fulaim lav mic to the other transmitter. Each transmitter was on its own split audio channel so I could hear the difference.

I tested the Fulaim in both omni and cardioid modes. I could clearly hear a difference when using the Fulaim in cardiod mode vs the Fulaim in omni mode or the raw sound from the Rode transmitter. The Fulaim in cardioid did not isolate my voice from the background noise but it was noticeable though subtle improvement. Overall sound quality was typical for a budget lav mic. Useable but not anything as true or rich as a professional lav mic.

I also compared this to a $36 Comica cardioid lav mic which had with slightly lower audio pickup. After adjusting the gain in post, the Comica and Fulaim sounded identical in terms of voice isolation. The Fulaim had slightly more bass response and was a 1/3 the price of that budget lav mic option.

For serious videographers and film makers, the Fulaim will not replace your hundred dollar Shure or Sennheiser lav mics. But for budget vloggers and content creators, the Fulaim lav mic at under $15 is a no brainer. Buy it and use it so we don’t have to hear the distractions.

Available on Amazon through my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3YZXuwi

Product Reviews, Shooting Sports

New Arken EPL-4

The first thing most experienced shooters remark on the Arken EPL-5 and SH-4, apart from the low price, is the weight. For all the features you get in a sub $600 scope, the one thing you don’t want more of is weight. Compared to a similar magnification Vortex, Athlon, or higher end scope, Arkens are heavier. This isn’t much of an issue for benchrest or even NRL or PRS shooters but it certainly was a deal breaker for most hunters.

Arken listened to the feedback and came up with a new line of scopes with an “L” in their name for “light weight”. The new 6-24×50 EPL-4 shaves off 16oz of weight compared to a 5-25×56 ELP-5. That weight savings comes with a trade off a smaller range of adjustment due to its smaller objective lens and tube. But along with its capped windage turret, this 1-pound weight saving should make this new scope attractive to back-country hunters and most competition shooters alike.

I look forward to testing the EPL-4 later this year.

Gadgets, Product Reviews

Early Sincere T12 Pro Smart Watch

The T12 Pro is a budget smart watch sold under a number of brand names from China. One such is Early Sincere, a brand I’d never heard of before they sent me a T12 which actually didn’t have that model name on it’s packaging. The box itself was fairly generic saying only “Smart Watch” and a sticker bearing the Early Sincere brand name.

Inside I found the watch, black watch band, instruction manual and a proprietary magnetic charging cable that plugs into a USB-A socket. The watch itself is an obvious copy of an Apple Watch in external design. In the multi-lingual manual was a QR code to download the DaFit App from the Android Marketplace, which controls the watch.

Pairing it to my phone via Bluetooth was a simple process using the DaFit App. In DaFit were charts for tracking my steps, heart rate, O2 levels, sleep pattern, and other vitals. The App also allows you to change watch faces and upload additional ones to the watch.

The watch has a suite of about 20 built-in Apps and control-panels like a stop-watch, camera shutter remote, weather, phone, messages. The watch allows you to send and receive calls through your phone but it does not have a built-in camera or a means to make video calls. Nor does there appear to any means to modify or update the apps.

Despite its very basic features, it has all of the core health-tracking functions I need in watch in a generally attractive design (albeit a knock-off one). The watch wakes from sleep quickly and without the usual lag I’ve experienced in FitBits and other budget smart watch. The touch screen is functional though a tad too sensitive in the shower where the phone misread the splashed water as my touching the face and sometimes cycling through menus accidentally.

For a price less than $65 this basic smart watch is a good value if you’re looking for a basic fitness tracker with a few more features.

UPDATE 1/23/23: After an initial 2 weeks use, I only averaged a 4 day charge on the watch. But after a 45 days, the battery capacity increased to 14 days. Apparently the battery needed to go through a number of charge/discharge cycles before optimizing.

Available on Amazon through this affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3FHSIuB

Gadgets, Product Reviews

Drinking Water Test Kit

Safe drinking water is one of the most important survival resources. You could survive for weeks without food but you can’t last longer than a few days without water. Being able to determine if your water is safe to drink after a natural or man-made disaster (such as Government incompetence and malfeasance as in Flint Michigan) wasn’t easy until now. TESPERT sells a 19-parameter test strip kit which allows you to test for water contamination and quality such as bacteria, ammonia, lead, and chlorine.

This TESPERT kit comes with a variety of sealed packets. Each packet is a type of testing kit containing 2-25 test strips. The whole kit comes with 100+ test strips, a plastic pipette (eye-dropper), and a small test tube.

The majority of the kit seems to be focused toward those testing swimming pools and aquarium water. But a number of tests are also applicable toward my interest, testing for drinking water contamination. While I can not accurately test all of the kits (nor do I have the expertise to test lead or water contamination), I chose to test 2 of the packets. If they could detect contamination of water, it’s likely the other tests are of the same quality.

AMMONIA TEST
I added 10ml from a urine sample (mine) to a beaker containing 100ml of water. I tested this solution using the Ammonia Nitrogen test strip but after 30 seconds, I did not see evidence of a color change. Adding additional ml of urine, I did see a small color shirt in the strip. While the test strips work, and may be helpful for aquarium fish, it is not sensitive enough to detect drinking water contamination for my comfort.

BACTERIA TEST
I added a drop of Yakult, a pro-biotic drink with live bacteria to a 50ml of water and added a drop of this sample to a Bacteria test card. The test requires 48hrs for results to appear on the card, so I stored the sample packet at room temperature. 48hrs later the blue test card showed a white contamination area confirming the presence of bacteria.

CONCLUSIONS
I am no expert, nor do I claim that this kit can guarantee safe drinking water, but what I tested confirmed the potential for these kits to be used to help inform the user. Unfortunately the sensitivity and speed of the tests make them impractical as a replacement for boiling or chemically sanitizing your water after a natural disaster.

TEST PACKETS

Water hardness

Free Chlorine

Iron

Copper

Lead

Nitrate

Nitrite

Total Chlorine

Cyanuric Acid

Alkalinity

Zinc

Nickel

Chloride (Salt)

Sulfate

Amonia Nitrogen

Low Range Chlorine

Low Range Nitrite

Bacteria

Available on Amazon through this affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3Gn9y3t

Geek Out, Product Reviews

Pervy Yoda Plush

https://youtu.be/uLj9ResONdA

They could have placed the activation button a little higher on the body of this mini-plush.

Available on Walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/Star-Wars-Mini-4-Talking-Plush-Toy-Clip-On-Yoda/48200898?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=1143&adid=22222222227000000000&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=42423897272&wl4=aud-393207457166:pla-51320962143&wl5=9031961&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=112549980&wl11=online&wl12=48200898_1143&veh=sem&gclid=Cj0KCQiA45qdBhD-ARIsAOHbVdHkXwGbqkMdr0suOqUW_VzZymRHi8Rw04QPxy7r1x4vhLnZnNueqT4aAoQ-EALw_wcB

Gadgets, Product Reviews

Boruit V1 Micro EDC

I recently reviewed the V3 light from Boruit which claimed to output 900 lumens but fell far short of those numbers in my estimation. So I was surprised when Boruit sent me their V1 to test. Unlike the V3, this box claims a more modest 400 lumens and I discovered it came far closer to keeping that promise.

The V1 has a USB thumb-drive form factor and this model has a glow-in-the dark translucent body. It comes in a similar box to the V3, with a USB-C charging cable, keychain ring, and instruction manual (though it was really more of a spec sheet). The flashlight is activated by 2 quick-presses and turned off with a long press. You can cycle between ECO-LOW-MED-HIGH brightness modes with a quick press and the unit also has a TURBO mode which is activated by a continuous press.

Like the V3, the unit also has side LEDs which can function as a signal light and table top lamp when head-standing it from it’s squared off metallic crown. Modes include: WHITE-BLINKING WHITE-UV-RED-BLINKING RED-RED/BLUE BLINK-WARM WHITE

After charging it over night, I conducted an endurance test at high brightness mode and it stayed on for about 82 minutes, slowly dimming as the battery ran down. Recharging it again I ran a lumen test. I was unable to confirm its 400 lumen TURBO mode due to my testing box must be completely sealed to get a more accurate reading.

Testing in HIGH mode, the unit briefly put out a maximum brightness of about 300 lumens after a 1-minute warm up. This was higher than the 220 lumen specs on the box. But the unit does not stay that brightness but instead drops steadily to about 80 lumens which is somewhere between HIGH and MEDIUM output as stated in the product specs.

Unfortunately inflated lumen numbers is par for the course in how budget EDC lights are marketed today. These brightness numbers are disappointing to anybody who bought this flashlight expecting 400 lumens but actually better than expected from a micro-EDC light no matter its price point.

The V1 easily passed my 6ft drop test and high-pressure water test. Its real world performance was good to above average, fully illuminating an interior hallway with a wide flood pattern. Outdoors this flood limited its throw to about 50ft-60ft. But for a thumb-sized flashlight that could do this for over an hour, this is pretty impressive. Even more so for a thumb-sized EDC that costs less than $17 as of this writing.

The Boruit V1 EDC is available on Amazon through this affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3BGIhX7